ENERGY: Project Realism

Richard Nixon's Project Independence goal of
making the U.S. self-sufficient in energy by 1980 has always seemed
impossibly visionary. Still, planning for the project has gone ahead,
only now in an atmosphere of far greater realism. Last week Federal
Energy Administrator John Sawhill opened four days of Project
Independence hearings in Manhattan by acknowledging candidly that the
U.S. will always need to import some oil.

Businessmen and prominent public figures who spoke at the hearings were
equally frank. One of the most optimistic predictions came from
Thornton Bradshaw, president of Atlantic Richfield, who thought that
the U.S. could reduce its...